Subtitles and Transcript

Majora Carter

0:12
So today, I'm going to tell you about some peoplewho didn't move out of their neighborhoods.The first one is happening right here in Chicago.Brenda Palms-Farber was hiredto help ex-convicts reenter societyand keep them from going back into prison.Currently, taxpayers spendabout 60,000 dollars per yearsending a person to jail.We know that two-thirds of them are going to go back.I find it interesting that, for every one dollarwe spend, however, on early childhood education,like Head Start,we save 17 dollarson stuff like incarceration in the future.Or -- think about it -- that 60,000 dollarsis more than what it coststo send one person to Harvard as well.

0:54
But Brenda, not being phased by stuff like that,took a look at her challengeand came upwith a not-so-obvious solution:create a businessthat produces skin care products from honey.Okay, it might be obvious to some of you; it wasn't to me.It's the basis of growing a form of social innovationthat has real potential.She hired seemingly unemployable men and womento care for the bees, harvest the honeyand make value-added productsthat they marketed themselves,and that were later sold at Whole Foods.She combined employment experience and trainingwith life skills they needed,like anger-management and teamwork,and also how to talk to future employersabout how their experiencesactually demonstrated the lessons that they had learnedand their eagerness to learn more.Less than four percentof the folks that went through her programactually go back to jail.So these young men and women learned job-readinessand life skills through bee keepingand became productive citizens in the process.Talk about a sweet beginning.

1:59
Now, I'm going to take you to Los Angeles,and lots of people knowthat L.A. has its issues.But I'm going to talk about L.A.'s water issues right now.They have not enough water on most daysand too much to handle when it rains.Currently, 20 percentof California's energy consumptionis used to pump waterinto mostly Southern California.Their spending loads, loads,to channel that rainwater out into the oceanwhen it rains and floods as well.Now Andy Lipkis is working to helpL.A. cut infrastructure costsassociated with water management and urban heat island --linking trees, people and technologyto create a more livable city.All that green stuff actually naturally absorbs storm water,also helps cool our cities.Because, come to think about it,do you really want air-conditioning,or is it a cooler room that you want?How you get it shouldn't make that much of a difference.

2:53
So a few years ago,L.A. Countydecided that they needed to spend 2.5 billion dollarsto repair the city schools.And Andy and his team discoveredthat they were going to spend 200 million of those dollarson asphalt to surround the schools themselves.And by presenting a really strong economic case,they convinced the L.A. governmentthat replacing that asphaltwith trees and other greenery,that the schools themselves would save the system more on energythan they spend on horticultural infrastructure.So ultimately, 20 million square feet of asphaltwas replaced or avoided,and electrical consumption for air-conditioning went down,while employmentfor people to maintain those grounds went up,resulting in a net-savings to the system,but also healthier students and schools system employees as well.

3:45
Now Judy Bondsis a coal miner's daughter.Her family has eight generationsin a town called Whitesville, West Virginia.And if anyone should be clingingto the former glory of the coal mining history,and of the town,it should be Judy.But the way coal is mined right now is differentfrom the deep mines that her fatherand her father's father would go down intoand that employed essentially thousands and thousands of people.Now, two dozen mencan tear down a mountain in several months,and only for about a few years' worth of coal.That kind of technology is called "mountaintop removal."It can make a mountain go from this to thisin a few short months.Just imagine that the air surrounding these places --it's filled with the residue of explosives and coal.When we visited, it gave some of the people we were withthis strange little coughafter being only there for just a few hours or so --not just miners, but everybody.

4:39
And Judy saw her landscape being destroyedand her water poisoned.And the coal companies just move onafter the mountain was emptied,leaving even more unemployment in their wake.But she also saw the difference in potential wind energyon an intact mountain,and one that was reduced in elevationby over 2,000 feet.Three years of dirty energy with not many jobs,or centuries of clean energywith the potential for developing expertise and improvements in efficiencybased on technical skills,and developing local knowledgeabout how to get the most out of that region's wind.She calculated the up-front costand the payback over time,and it's a net-plus on so many levelsfor the local, national and global economy.It's a longer payback than mountaintop removal,but the wind energy actually pays back forever.Now mountaintop removal pays very little money to the locals,and it gives them a lot of misery.The water is turned into goo.Most people are still unemployed,leading to most of the same kinds of social problemsthat unemployed people in inner cities also experience --drug and alcohol abuse,domestic abuse, teen pregnancy and poor heath, as well.

5:46
Now Judy and I -- I have to say --totally related to each other.Not quite an obvious alliance.I mean, literally, her hometown is called Whitesville, West Virginia.I mean, they are not --they ain't competing for the birthplace of hip hop titleor anything like that.But the back of my T-shirt, the one that she gave me,says, "Save the endangered hillbillies."So homegirls and hillbillies we got it togetherand totally understand that this is what it's all about.But just a few months ago,Judy was diagnosedwith stage-three lung cancer.Yeah.And it has since moved to her bones and her brain.And I just find it so bizarrethat she's suffering from the same thingthat she tried so hard to protect people from.But her dreamof Coal River Mountain Windis her legacy.And she might notget to see that mountaintop.But rather than writingyet some kind of manifesto or something,she's leaving behinda business plan to make it happen.That's what my homegirl is doing.So I'm so proud of that.

7:01
(Applause)

7:06
But these three peopledon't know each other,but they do have an awful lot in common.They're all problem solvers,and they're just some of the many examplesthat I really am privileged to see, meet and learn fromin the examples of the work that I do now.I was really lucky to have them all featuredon my Corporation for Public Radio radio showcalled ThePromisedLand.org.Now they're all very practical visionaries.They take a look at the demands that are out there --beauty products, healthy schools, electricity --and how the money's flowing to meet those demands.And when the cheapest solutionsinvolve reducing the number of jobs,you're left with unemployed people,and those people aren't cheap.In fact, they make up some of what I call the most expensive citizens,and they include generationally impoverished,traumatized vets returning from the Middle East,people coming out of jail.And for the veterans in particular,the V.A. said there's a six-fold increasein mental health pharmaceuticals by vets since 2003.I think that number's probably going to go up.They're not the largest number of people,but they are some of the most expensive --and in terms of the likelihood for domestic abuse, drug and alcohol abuse,poor performance by their kids in schoolsand also poor health as a result of stress.So these three guys all understandhow to productively channel dollarsthrough our local economiesto meet existing market demands,reduce the social problems that we have nowand prevent new problems in the future.

8:27
And there are plenty of other examples like that.One problem: waste handling and unemployment.Even when we think or talk about recycling,lots of recyclable stuff ends up getting incinerated or in landfillsand leaving many municipalities, diversion rates --they leave much to be recycled.And where is this waste handled? Usually in poor communities.And we know that eco-industrial business, these kinds of business models --there's a model in Europe called the eco-industrial park,where either the waste of one company is the raw material for another,or you use recycled materialsto make goods that you can actually use and sell.We can create these local markets and incentivesfor recycled materialsto be used as raw materials for manufacturing.And in my hometown, we actually tried to do one of these in the Bronx,but our mayor decided what he wanted to seewas a jail on that same spot.Fortunately -- because we wanted to create hundreds of jobs --but after many years,the city wanted to build a jail.They've since abandoned that project, thank goodness.

9:23
Another problem: unhealthy food systems and unemployment.Working-class and poor urban Americansare not benefiting economicallyfrom our current food system.It relies too much on transportation,chemical fertilization, big use of waterand also refrigeration.Mega agricultural operationsoften are responsible for poisoning our waterways and our land,and it produces this incredibly unhealthy productthat costs us billions in healthcareand lost productivity.And so we know "urban ag"is a big buzz topic this time of the year,but it's mostly gardening,which has some value in community building -- lots of it --but it's not in terms of creating jobsor for food production.The numbers just aren't there.Part of my work now is really laying the groundworkto integrate urban ag and rural food systemsto hasten the demise of the 3,000-mile saladby creating a national brand of urban-grown producein every city,that uses regional growing powerand augments it with indoor growing facilities,owned and operated by small growers,where now there are only consumers.This can support seasonal farmers around metro areaswho are losing out because they really can't meetthe year-round demand for produce.It's not a competition with rural farm;it's actually reinforcements.It allies in a really positiveand economically viable food system.

10:42
The goal is to meet the cities' institutional demandsfor hospitals,senior centers, schools, daycare centers,and produce a network of regional jobs, as well.This is smart infrastructure.And how we manage our built environmentaffects the health and well-being of people every single day.Our municipalities, rural and urban,play the operational course of infrastructure --things like waste disposal, energy demand,as well as social costs of unemployment, drop-out rates, incarceration ratesand the impacts of various public health costs.Smart infrastructure can provide cost-saving waysfor municipalities to handleboth infrastructure and social needs.And we want to shift the systemsthat open the doors for people who were formerly tax burdensto become part of the tax base.And imagine a national business modelthat creates local jobs and smart infrastructureto improve local economic stability.So I'm hoping you can see a little theme here.

11:38
These examples indicate a trend.I haven't created it, and it's not happening by accident.I'm noticing that it's happening all over the country,and the good news is that it's growing.And we all need to be invested in it.It is an essential pillar to this country's recovery.And I call it "hometown security."The recession has us reeling and fearful,and there's something in the air these daysthat is also very empowering.It's a realizationthat we are the keyto our own recovery.Now is the time for us to act in our own communitieswhere we think local and we act local.And when we do that, our neighbors --be they next-door, or in the next state,or in the next country --will be just fine.The sum of the local is the global.Hometown security means rebuilding our natural defenses,putting people to work,restoring our natural systems.Hometown security means creating wealth here at home,instead of destroying it overseas.Tackling social and environmental problemsat the same time with the same solutionyields great cost savings,wealth generation and national security.Many great and inspiring solutionshave been generated across America.The challenge for us nowis to identify and support countless more.

12:57
Now, hometown security is about taking care of your own,but it's not like the old saying,"charity begins at home."I recently read a book called "Love Leadership" by John Hope Bryant.And it's about leading in a worldthat really does seem to be operating on the basis of fear.And reading that book made me reexamine that theorybecause I need to explain what I mean by that.See, my dadwas a great, great man in many ways.He grew up in the segregated South,escaped lynching and all thatduring some really hard times,and he provided a really stable home for me and my siblingsand a whole bunch of other people that fell on hard times.But, like all of us, he had some problems.(Laughter)And his was gambling,compulsively.To him that phrase, "Charity begins at home,"meant that my payday -- or someone else's --would just happen to coincide with his lucky day.So you need to help him out.And sometimes I would loan him moneyfrom my after-school or summer jobs,and he always had the great intentionof paying me back with interest,of course, after he hit it big.And he did sometimes, believe it or not,at a racetrack in Los Angeles --one reason to love L.A. -- back in the 1940s.He made 15,000 dollars cashand bought the house that I grew up in.So I'm not that unhappy about that.But listen, I did feel obligated to him,and I grew up -- then I grew up.And I'm a grown woman now,and I have learned a few things along the way.

14:29
To me, charityoften is just about giving,because you're supposed to,or because it's what you've always done,or it's about giving until it hurts.I'm about providing the meansto build something that will growand intensify its original investmentand not just require greater giving next year --I'm not trying to feed the habit.I spent some yearswatching how good intentions for community empowerment,that were supposed to be thereto support the community and empower it,actually left peoplein the same, if not worse, position that they were in before.And over the past 20 years,we've spent record amounts of philanthropic dollarson social problems,yet educational outcomes,malnutrition, incarceration,obesity, diabetes, income disparity,they've all gone up with some exceptions --in particular, infant mortalityamong people in poverty --but it's a great world that we're bringing them into as well.

15:30
And I know a little bit about these issues,because, for many years, I spent a long timein the non-profit industrial complex,and I'm a recovering executive director,two years clean.(Laughter)But during that time, I realized that it was about projectsand developing them on the local levelthat really was going to do the right thing for our communities.But I really did struggle for financial support.The greater our success,the less money came in from foundations.And I tell you, being on the TED stageand winning a MacArthur in the same exact yeargave everyone the impression that I had arrived.And by the time I'd moved on,I was actually covering a thirdof my agency's budget deficit with speaking fees.And I think because early on, frankly,my programs were just a little bit ahead of their time.But since then,the park that was just a dump and was featured at a TED2006 Talkbecame this little thing.But I did in fact get married in it.Over here.There goes my dog who led me to the park in my wedding.The South Bronx Greenwaywas also just a drawing on the stage back in 2006.Since then, we gotabout 50 million dollars in stimulus package moneyto come and get here.And we love this, because I love construction now,because we're watching these things actually happen.

16:49
So I want everyone to understandthe critical importanceof shifting charity into enterprise.I started my firm to help communities across the countryrealize their own potentialto improve everything about the quality of life for their people.Hometown securityis next on my to-do list.What we need are people who see the valuein investing in these types of local enterprises,who will partner with folks like meto identify the growth trends and climate adaptationas well as understand the growing social costsof business as usual.We need to work togetherto embrace and repair our land,repair our power systemsand repair ourselves.It's time to stop buildingthe shopping malls, the prisons,the stadiumsand other tributes to all of our collective failures.It is time that we start buildingliving monuments to hope and possibility.